(CNN) -- Two men have been arrested in connection with an effigy of Sen. Barack Obama that was hung outside a building at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, police saidThursday.

Joe Fischer, left, and Hunter Bush were arrested on disorderly conduct and other charges, police said.

Authorities found a life-size effigy of the Democratic presidential candidate hanging from a tree outside the school's Mines and Minerals building on Wednesdaymorning, police said.

Police said they arrested Joe Fischer, 22, a senior at the university, and Hunter Bush, 21, a former student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College.

"This was a serious incident. It caused a lot of wounds to be opened from racial tension," said University of Kentucky acting police chief Joe Monroe.

After following leads and conducting interviews, investigators determined that Fischer and Bush had asked members of a University of Kentucky fraternity for items to make the effigy but did not tell the fraternity members why they wanted them, Monroe said.

Fischer and Bush were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, burglary and theft by unlawful taking, police said. The burglary and theft charges involve allegedly removing items from a room in the fraternity house.

"We had a pre-established dialogue with this fraternity, and they spoke to us very openly and freely," Monroe said.